Wikileaks: Anti-Israeli “Experts” Got Everything Wrong

Couple points from the WikiLeak release that’s not related to the treasonous release itself.

Many of the released cables confirm that which was already suspected. For example, the fact that Iran smuggled arms to Hizballah using ambulances and their Red Crescent during the 2006 war. A fact Israel brought up when they were condemned for attacking ambulances….these documents prove Israel knew what it was talking about and that the UN was its usual ineffective self. Again, no shocker there.

Bigger news, not shocking, but big, is the fact that Arab states, not Israel, were the ones vehemently opposed to Iran becoming a nuclear nation and DID NOT condition acceptance of a attack on Iran with a solution to Israel:

The Guardian also quotes documents that show officials in Jordan and Bahrain “openly calling for Iran’s nuclear program to be stopped by any means, including military.” The British daily also says leaders in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt called Iran “evil,” and an “existential threat” which “is going to take us to war.”

Another cable published by The Guardian, from later in 2009, cites a meeting of the U.S.-Israel Joint Political Military Group, in which members of Israel’s Mossad spy agency said Iran was using repeated attempts to resolve the nuclear issue through diplomacy to “play for time” and evade sanctions, “while pursuing its strategic objective to obtain a military nuclear capability.”

The cable also quotes Mossad representatives as believing that Iran wanted “to become a regional hegemon, and is dictating its agenda by using Hamas and Hezbollah as force multipliers.”

Details details. Here are a few snippets from the meeting Obama had with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah last year:

10. (S) The King, Foreign Minister, Prince Muqrin, and Prince Nayif all agreed that the Kingdom needs to cooperate with the US on resisting and rolling back Iranian influence and subversion in Iraq. The King was particularly adamant on this point, and it was echoed by the senior princes as well. Al-Jubeir recalled the King’s frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program. “He told you to cut off the head of the snake,” he recalled to the Charge’, adding that working with the US to roll back Iranian influence in Iraq is a strategic priority for the King and his government.

~~~

4.(C) IRAN: King Hamad pointed to Iran as the source of much of the trouble in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He argued forcefully for taking action to terminate their nuclear program, by whatever means necessary. “That program must be stopped,” he said. “The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.” King Hamad added that in light of these regional developments, Bahrain was working to strengthen GCC coordination and its relations with allies and international organizations.

Omri Ceren decimates the anti-Israeli meme brought forward by academics and the MSM over the Obama/Abdullah meeting and its outcome:

It didn’t get nearly as much play as it should have, but Obama’s June 2009 meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah ended with the monarch flying into a tirade and more or less telling the President to get a grip. This was the Riyadh meeting that Obama took on his way to his insulting and failed Cairo Speech, the better to prepare himself by visiting “the place where Islam began.”The sit-down was such a disaster that Dennis Ross was hurriedly brought into the White House and given a broader role, yielding the impression that the President wanted a Middle East adviser who kind of understood something about the Middle East – and didn’t think he had one.

There were two theories on why the meeting went so badly.

On one side you had typical left-leaning foreign policy experts, the ones who had been advising Obama from the beginning and who now needed to explain why things turned out the opposite of how they predicted. Their approach to the Middle East is grounded in the two dogmas of anti-Israel foreign policy sophistication: (a) linkage, according to which Middle East pathologies are a result of the unresolved Arab/Israeli conflict rather than vice versa and (b) “if only Israel would…,” according to which the Arab/Israel conflict could be resolved were Israel to offer more concessions. They had promised that an “even-handed approach” to the Middle East that “put daylight” between the US and Israel would lead to Israeli gestures, at which point Arab regimes would reciprocate. Nothing of the sort came out of the Riyadh meeting. Instead of admitting that they had somehow gotten Saudi priorities or intentions wrong, that crowd doubled down and insisted that the Saudis cared so much about the Palestinians that Obama needed to put even more pressure on Israel to bring around Arab countries.

On the other side you had Middle East experts like Dan Diker, who insisted on One Jerusalem Radio’s Omri Ceren Show that the Saudis gave Obama a bruising lecture on what they actually care about, and it wasn’t the Palestinians. Under this theory King Abdullah expected to talk about militarily confronting Iran, and he couldn’t believe it when Obama kept reciting bromides about the earth-shattering importance of the Israeli/Arab conflict and his enthusiasm for solving it. That was a regular public topic between the two – Obama’s first talk with Abdullah focused on Gaza and the President later emphasized his abiding support for Saudi Arabia’s “Israel Has To Commit Suicide” plan – but the King kind of thought he was dealing with a serious person who could separate spectacle from policy. Instead he got the equivalent of an International Relations graduate student enamored with pseudo-sophisticated “insights” he’d gleaned from Arab media outlets. Ergo, meltdown.

Omri quotes various “experts” who dismissed the notion that the Arab states would welcome a military response to Iran…the analysis of these “experts” was recycled throughout the MSM until it became the official meme….Iran just wasn’t that big of a deal.

How wrong those “experts” were.

It’s clear from the cables that many states, not just Israel, were warning that a nuclear armed Iran will destabilize the whole region. Furthermore, not one up brought up the Israel “solution” when they spoke about Iran and what should be done about them.

Nan G

How is it when a country does not have a free press and Wikileaks MIGHT make some of the leadership look bad?

LATimes
Headlines in the heavily state-controlled Saudi media were dominated by news of King Abdullah’s ongoing physiotherapy, while the top story in the Emirati newspaper, Al Bayan, centered on Prince Mohamad bin Rashid’s praise for the country’s progress toward “transparency.”

Most mentions of the WikiLeaks documents in official Arabic news outlets were scrubbed of any reference to the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, focusing instead on U.S. attempts to control the damage to its diplomatic relations.

Even the Qatar-based Al Jazeera, considered one of the most credible pan-Arab news outlets, tread lightly in its coverage and generally refrained from repeating the most incendiary quotes from the heads of neighboring states.

While nothing was openly redacted, nothing was covered …. that mattered.

John ryan

The Arab state with the largest population is Iraq and they were one of only 3 countries to go on record as supporting Iran and their nuclear program, does anyone think that if Saddam was around HE would have allowed that to happen ?
And the “Left” is where 80%+ of American Jews vote. Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe THEY know what is best for Israel?

Wordsmith

does anyone think that if Saddam was around HE would have allowed that to happen ?

Do YOU think if Saddam were around HE would not have reconstituted his nuclear programs? Continued his state-sponsorship of exported terrorism? When the Taliban fell during OEF, what was one of the countries al Qaeda fled to?

And the “Left” is where 80%+ of American Jews vote. Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe THEY know what is best for Israel?

Did it ever occur to you that Israelis know what’s best for Israel and it is not in alignment with 80% American Jews? Do you know why American Jews vote Democrat?

B-Rob

Hard Right —

I think what John ryan is saying is “American Jews know what is better for Israel than American gentiles.” American Jews overwhelmingly vote Dem, not R. I think that fact alone says something about which party they believe is “good for Israel.”

Hard Right

B-Rob, you are right. It does show something…and it isn’t positive. The dem party is quite anti-Israel. The fact that they support it seems to place them in the camp of liberal first, second, and third, Israel supporter last. Others would call them self hating Jews for taking the side of those who sympathise with people who want to wipe Israel off the map.

It’s sad that so many American Jews cozy up to a political view similar to that of their previous persecutors. Hatred of Jews in the U.S. has primarily come from the left for several decades now. Their failure to recognize that tells anyone with a brain that the residents of Israel are the ones to listen to and not those who have no skin in the game other than political ideology.

Wordsmith

B-Rob

The Dems are “anti-Israel” says you; but the voting patterns of American Jews, who should know from anti-Israel, says differently. Indeed, it is fair to say that “most Jews ARE Dems”. Which creates a problem for your “Dems are anti-Israel” claim.

Jews, as a population, tend to be highly educated, have a high rate of business ownership and membership in the professions, and they tend have above average incomes as a result of the two. These are “the people of the book.” I would think that they would tend to know where their bread is buttered, politically speaking, and would know how to vote their interests. I simply don’t buy the “self hating Jew” argument presented by right wing Jewish GOPer apologists, just as I don’t buy the “liberal plantation” argument where Black voters are concerned: both claims are incredibly patronizing and seem to deny both minority groups any ability to think for themselves and to vote their interests as they see those interests.

There are two possible answers to this conundrum, Jew are Dems even though you claim Dems are “anti-Israel”. (a) you are simply flat out wrong about Dems being “anti-Israel” and that is why Jews vote Dem, or (b) you are correct that Dems are anti-Israel, but Jews find GOPers so incredibly distasteful that they vote Dem anyway.

Take your pick . . . or are you saying “Jews are anti-Israel and that is why they are Dems”? Either way, you claim makes no sense.

DC

I’m sure there are lots of nuances as to why most jews vote democratic…but some of the bigger ones are that many of them came here, or were born to parents who were immigrant laborers and are part of the labor movement (read unions) in NYC and CA. They also identify heavily with civil rights movement and anti-discriminatory laws. Further, many of them view the right wing as being heavily identified exclusively with conservative Christianity..where as they see the left as being more open in that regard. There are also many jews here in NYC that are entirely dependent upon the state (ie., welfare, etc) and see democrats more as protectors of such entitlements.

Most of that is simply a failure of the Republican party to define themselves (and difference with democrats) clearly. Most liberals I know hate jews and would gladly see them tossed in the sea. They continue to play to their “broad” horizon message while they are, in reality, very narrow. NYC for all its talk of social liberalism…is VERY one sided when it comes to politics. They’ll send crooks back to office before they’ll vote republican. I see that more as a failure of republicans to define things clearly. But, that’s just me.

Nan G

More comes out as the hours and days go by…..

An interesting cable about a meeting between Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and Egyptian General Intelligence Service Chief Omar Soliman, April 2009. In it, we learn that Egypt is recruiting spies in Syria and Iraq to infiltrate Iran, that Egypt is just as upset at Iran as any other Arab state – and not just because of the nuclear issue; that Iran was smuggling arms and $25 million of cash into Gaza a month; that Gaza puts moderate Arab regimes in a corner (presumably because they don’t support Hamas radicalism but their people do), that Soliman does not distinguish between Hezbollah and Iran at all. Excerpts:

Soliman said radicalism was the “backbone” of regional security threats, adding that radicalism in Gaza posed a particularly serious threat to Egyptian national security. Soliman said Egypt must “confront” Iranian attempts to smuggle arms to Gaza and stop arms smuggling through Egyptian territory.

We do not want incidents like Gaza to inflame public anger,” Soliman said, adding that the Gaza conflict put “moderate (Arab) regimes” in a corner. To prevent another outbreak of violence, Egypt is focusing on Palestinian reconciliation and a durable cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. On reconciliation, Soliman explained, the ultimate goal was to return the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, as “Gaza in the hands of radicals will never be calm.”

Iran is “very active in Egypt,” Soliman said. Iranian financial support to Hamas amounted to $25 million a month, but he said Egypt was “succeeding” in preventing financial support from entering Gaza through Egypt. Iran has tried several times to pay the salaries for the al-Qassam Battalions, but Egypt had succeeded in preventing the money from reaching Gaza. Soliman said the Egyptian government had arrested a “big Hezbollah cell,” which was Hezbollah’s first attempt to stand up a cell within Egypt. Iran was also trying to recruit support from the Sinai Bedouins, he claimed, in order to facilitate arms smuggling to Gaza.

Egypt has “started a confrontation with Hezbollah and Iran,” Soliman stressed, and “we will not allow Iran to operate in Egypt.” Soliman said Egypt had sent a clear message to Iran that if they interfere in Egypt, Egypt will interfere in Iran, adding that EGIS had already begun recruiting agents in Iraq and Syria. Soliman hoped the U.S. would “not walk the same track as the Europeans” in regards to negotiating with Iran and warned against only focusing on one issue at time, like Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Iran must “pay the price” for its actions and not be allowed to interfere in regional affairs. “If you want Egypt to cooperate with you on Iran, we will,” Soliman added, “it would take a big burden off our shoulders.”

Moshe Sharon

An Arab from Gaza and a self-confessed member of Hamas once asked me, “How can we have peace?” I though it was a strange question coming from a terrorist. When I asked him if he was ready to recognize Israel’s right to exist, he answered, “There is no such country as ‘Israel’; there is only Palestine, my country.” That’s why negotiating peace with Hamas or any other Arab faction is a fool’s errand. In this man’s mind, Israel’s right to exist is not an issue because there is no Israel; there is just a large, well-armed group of space-occupying Jewish squatters, who deserve death. Furthermore, every U.S. president keeps saying the same mantra, “They [Palestinian Authority] must recognize Israel’s right to exist.” Correction; they must first recognize that Israel exists. Actually, somebody forgot to tell all of the politicians that we Jews don’t need their permission to exist as a nation; G-d gave that to us at Mount Sinai. http://soulfulthought.blogspot.com

James Raider

Moshe,

Thanks for pointing out the reality at the root of the problem – deeply flawed perceptions, . . . . it isn’t about “territory” it’s about right of existence. There’s much work to do to open those closed minds.